The Danville News/Daily Item

Robert John Andews

September 3, 2026

“Labor Day”

Word Count: 750

 

My father wasn’t the “Hey, son, let’s play a game of catch,” kind of dad.  He was a Protestant Work Ethic, do your duty, sort of fellow.  Fond memories of dad include us unloading trucks in the family paint store factory.  He demonstrated how hard work bestowed dignity, how providing a product that benefited the community, treating his employees decently, along with commitment to civic leadership, bestowed a sense of fortune. 

 

Testimonials shared about dad following his death related how the staff at our family’s Country Club regarded our father (yes, I grew up affluent and patrician).  From the fellow who shined golf shoes in the locker room to the caddies to the groundskeepers to the waitresses in the dining room, they all said how he treated them with respect and courtesy.  How he appreciated what they did and knew their names.  To them, dad was a gentleman.  Dad (admittedly patriarchal) was that old-fashioned guy, a morality capitalist and servant boss with old-school manners who valued persons for who they were regardless of wallet, make of car, portfolio, or position.   

 

Sidebar:  a surgeon friend would periodically ask his surgical residents if they learned the name of the person who cleaned up the operating room after a procedure. 

 

My old-school Republican dad (his party since having committed suicide) would have connected the dots when historian John Meacham advocated for “principle over idolatry of power.”  Given dad’s work ethic and integrity, I can guess he would have viewed our nation’s accelerated wealth disparity as unfair, exacerbated by our termite riddled economics, the powerless suffering the most.  Dad, doing his best in an increasingly mercenary culture, was an ardent capitalist knowing full well that capitalism only works when the capitalists are moral people. 

 

We should be proud that folks, whether documented or not, want to emigrate here and succeed and contribute.  Born in the USA!  What a gift for all!  Here’s a daring thought:  What if our nation’s policies marshaled our abundant resources toward caring and curing rather than antagonizing, threatening, giving cause for us to be feared, distrusted, hated?

 

Dad’s conduct and character brought a pastoral sensitivity to me as to what members of my congregations faced day in, day out.  From the Sunday pulpit I would marvel to see an array of occupations.  Barbers.  Farmers.  Hardware store managers.  Food workers.  Lawyers.  Machinists.  Social Workers.  Teachers.  Janitors.  Homemakers.  Police officers.  Students.  Truck drivers.  Surgeons, pharmacists, nurses, technicians. 

 

Each worker had a story to tell.  Some good.  Some bad. Most, a little bit of both.  How do they get through the day?  Are they satisfied?  Worried?  Looking for something better?  Happy at what they’ve accomplished?  For some it's more than the paycheck.  For some it’s the paycheck for the sake of their family. 

 

I credit my parents with me learning to ask in my profession:  How does the church serve them rather than expecting them to serve the church?  How is the church equipping them for their daily lives?

 

It’s a tough culture requiring tougher religious institutions.  Workforce trends are increasingly alarming.  The average worker will work 12 jobs in a lifetime.  Average percentage of housing costs is 43% of the homeowner’s family budget (compared with 22% in the 1950’s).  Job openings remain frustrating.  Real average hourly earnings dropped by .02%, consumer prices up by 3.4%.   Add to this:  Crushing college loans, predatory credit card companies and sinister gambling apps, deflated real earnings, treading water upon the widening whirlpool of part-time employment, healthcare costs, social safety nets yanked from the needy.  Worse:  The top 1% control 31.7 % of household wealth.  The bottom 50% hold 2.6%.  Let’s toss into this modern workforce mix innovative technologies replacing old jobs, where new jobs have to be invented, where some of the old ones can’t recruit young folks who want to install new furnaces or paint houses even if it means making more money than seduced by the AI industry.   

 

 You do realize that it’s logistically impossible to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.

 

Monday, September 7, is designated Labor Day.  Note: it’s not designed to honor corporations or privileged parasitical princelings.  The wealthy get celebrated too much in today’s America. 

 

From Bertolt Brecht’s poem, “A Worker Reads History:”  ”Who built the seven towers of Thebes?  The books are filled with names of kings.  Was it kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stones?... In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished where did the masons go?”

 

America honors Labor Day, not Wealth Day.